Roseville hospital chain pays $2.25 million to settle Medicare case

A Roseville hospital chain has agreed to pay $2.25 million to settle false-claims allegations related to Medicare charges at one of its hospitals.

The settlement by Adventist Health marks the second time in a year and a half that the Roseville chain has agreed to pay the federal government over litigation brought under the federal False Claims Act.

In the latest case, Adventist Health settled a civil lawsuit that accused St. Helena Hospital of submitting false claims to Medicare for cardiac procedures and patient admissions between January 2008 and July 2011. The U.S. attorney’s office in San Francisco, which announced the settlement, said the hospital was billing Medicare for unnecessary angioplasty procedures.

There was no admission of wrongdoing by Adventist.

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The case was originally brought by a former hospital employee, Kacie Carroll, who filed a lawsuit under the federal whistleblower law, which lets citizens initiate cases on the government’s behalf and then collect a share of the settlement. Carroll’s share is $450,000.

In May 2013, the Adventist chain agreed to pay federal and state officials $14.1 million to settle claims that its Los Angeles hospital, White Memorial Medical Center, paid inflated fees to a group of doctors who referred patients to the facility. Two doctors who blew the whistle on the alleged arrangement received $2.8 million of that settlement.

Adventist operates 19 hospitals in California, Oregon, Washington state and Hawaii. None of the hospitals are in the Sacramento area.